Human-state based active physical human-robot interaction

在过去十年中，协作机械手和辅助机器人设备的销量和采用率都有所增加，这表明，无论是在工业应用还是在家庭环境中，都在转向让人类与机器人并肩工作的应用。由于技术的快速进步，与机器人设备的物理交互将成为不可避免的。关于机器人控制的研究主要集中在保证物理安全上，但往往忽视了人类使用者的心理安全和心理舒适性。该项目旨在探索人类用户在控制机器人时的感知和心理舒适性，从心理和身体两个角度实现真正安全的人与机器人交互。提出的研究计划包括以下目标：1.调查与机器人的物理交互相关的感知，并确定相关因素(例如，接受、精神负荷和交换力)；2.基于实时可测量数据，并考虑使用机器学习方法改善交互历史，建立一个综合了心理和身体状态的人-状态模型；3.开发一种用于机器人的自适应和预测控制器，该控制器使用人-状态模型与用户交互，使得控制结构将是分层的，并且将同时考虑人、环境和任务完成的状态；以及4.在实际的机器人平台上验证结果，从协作机械手开始，这是一种正在全球和加拿大大规模生产的最先进的机器人，与Kinova等加拿大公司以及ABB、KUKA等在加拿大设有生产基地的公司合作。这项研究计划是高度跨学科的，因为它包括社会机器人、机器人控制、人类建模、人的因素和机器学习的各个方面。滑铁卢大学(UW)的设施，包括RoboHub和动作捕捉实验室(MCL)，将使该计划达到其规定的目标，并有助于培训具有尖端技术的高技能专业人员。我们的学生将专攻人机交互、机器人控制、建模和机器学习，这些专业在机器人行业和机器人应用中发挥着至关重要的作用，如工业仓库组织、装配线、智能家居、护理行业，旨在提高加拿大人的生活质量。来自该项目的训练有素的人员将为学术界和工业界机器人技术的进步做出贡献，这将确立加拿大作为新兴机器人技术领域世界领先者的角色。

Collaborative manipulators and assistive robotic devices have increased in sales and adoption in the last decade, indicating a shift towards applications involving humans working side by side with robots, both in industrial applications and domestic environments. Physical interactions with robotic devices will become inevitable due to rapid advances in technology. Research on robot control has heavily focused on guaranteeing physical safety, but often ignores the psychological safety and mental comfort of the human user. This program intends to explore the perceptions and mental comfort of human users in the control of robots, enabling a truly safe human-robot interaction, from both the mental and physical points of view. The proposed research program consists of the following objectives: 1. To investigate the perceptions related to physical interactions with robots and to identify the relevant factors (e.g., acceptance, mental load, and exchanged forces); 2. To build a human-state model that is comprehensive of both mental and physical states based on real-time measurable data, considering also improvements in interaction history using machine learning methods; 3. To develop an adaptive and predictive controller for robots that uses the human-state model to interact with users, so that the control structure will be hierarchical and will consider at the same time the state of the human, the environment, and task completion; and 4. To validate the outcomes on actual robot platforms, starting with the collaborative manipulator, which is a state-of-the-art robot being produced worldwide and in Canada on a large scale, with Canadian companies such as Kinova and companies with production sites in Canada such as ABB, KUKA. This research program is highly interdisciplinary as it includes aspects of social robotics, robot control, human modeling, human factors, and machine learning. The facilities at the University of Waterloo (UW), including the RoboHub and the Motion Capture Lab (MCL) will permit this program to reach its defined objectives, and contribute to the training of highly skilled professionals with cutting--edge technology. Our students will become specialized in human-robot interaction, robot control, modeling, and machine learning, which play essential roles in the robotics industry and robotics applications, such as industrial warehouse organization, assembly lines, intelligent homes, care industry, aiming to improve the quality of life of Canadians. The trained personnel from this program will contribute to advancements in robotics in both academia and industry, which will establish the role of Canada as world leader in the rising field of robotic technologies.